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Dialogue: SMECO and ICF on "The FlexTemp Pilot" - a 20th PLMA Award Winner
Thursday, August 31, 2023, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM EDT
Category: PLMA Load Management Dialogue
PLMA Load Management Leadership 20th PLMA Awards Series


Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative and ICF: The FlexTemp Pilot

Hosted by PLMA's Awards Planning Group
Guest Speakers: Jennifer Raley and Jeff Shaw with SMECO; Drew Durkee and Alex Emond of ICF
Thursday, August 31, 2023 | 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm ET

Impacts of the FlexTemp Pilot

Gaining Maryland Public Service Commission approval in March of 2022, the SMECO FlexTemp Pilot moved quickly to stand up a flexible load management program directly associated with the management of smart thermostats, during both the cooling and heating seasons. The approach taken for the program was presented during PLMA's Spring 2022 Conference and was titled “Revenue and Emission Benefits of Managing Thermostats on a Sub-hourly Basis”.

The FlexTemp Pilot builds on SMECO’s innovative approach to utilizing smart thermostats, dating back to 2015, as one of the first utilities to provide incentives to customers for the installation of smart thermostats.

The FlexTemp Pilot achieved considerable success in 2022 and proves it's possible to manage behind-the-meter assets as grid resources, and that devices can also support decarbonization goals and plans. Additional impacts include:

  • The ability to group cohort members and schedule dispatches on a day-ahead basis.
  • Development of procedures to group cohort members and schedule dispatches on a real-time basis
  • Learning customer behavior, which allows for seasonality of customer cohorting.
  • Optimization of members enrolled to dispatch events to achieve firm service levels.
  • Optimization of members enrolled to dispatch events to achieve guaranteed load drop.
  • Events called based on optimization of energy savings
  • Events called based on optimization of capacity savings
  • Events called based on optimization of GHG emission reduction
  • Ability to dispatch on a real-time basis instead of day ahead basis
  • Members enrolled = 250+ with the expectation of exceeding 1,000+ by May 2023.
  • Reduced member opt-out rate in comparison with traditional DR programs (~1.5% as compared to ~25%)
  • kW/member saved on average per event: 1 kW
Register Here!


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Meet our Discussion Leaders:

Kevin Knight, Baltimore Gas & Electric

Kevin Knight

Moderator,
Baltimore Gas & Electric
LinkedIn

 Jennifer Raley, SMECO

Jennifer Raley

Speaker,
SMECO
LinkedIn

 Jeff Shaw, SMECO

Jeff Shaw

Speaker,
SMECO
LinkedIn
Admed Bekhit, ICF

Ahmed Bekhit

Speaker,
ICF
LinkedIn

 Alex Emond, ICF

Alex Emond

Speaker,
ICF
LinkedIn

 Drew Durkee, ICF

Drew Durkee

Speaker,
ICF
LinkedIn

Who Should Attend. Energy industry professionals seeking thought leadership and insights of relevance to their daily work. 

How Load Management Dialogues Work. When you register, you are welcome to submit a comment or question for our speaker(s). After brief introductions, our guest speaker(s) will each present their perspectives on the topic. Our moderator will then host a Q&A discussion that includes audience participation. Following the Dialogue, you will receive a link to PLMA's Load Management Resource Center where you can see a session recording and a copy of the slides. If you are unable participate in person in the Dialogue, you can also listen to it on the PLMA Load Management Dialogues podcast, or view it on PLMA's Load Management Resource Center.